


Once and Future Sorcerer

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthurian, Character Study, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Magic Meta, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24544024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: I’ve been brooding about the BBC Merlin vision of Arthur and Merlin’s linked fates and I have a lot of historically-informed Feelings as a result.This is more meta than anything else, I'm afraid. But I'm in the middle of a rewatch, so decided to cross-post this from Tumblr. Episodes in British history are explicitly identified in the notes.Chapter 2 is magic headcanons.
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

“Yet somme men say in many partyes of Englond that kyng Arthur is not deed / But had by the wylle of our lord Ihesu in to another place / and men say that he shal come ageyn & he shal wynne the holy crosse. I wyl not say that it shal be so / but rather I wyl say here in thys world he chaunged his lyf / but many men say that there is wryton vpon his tombe this vers: Hic iacet Arthurus Rex quondam Rex que futurus.” -- Thomas Malory, _Le Morte D’Arthur_

We all know this: Arthur’s coming is future, indefinitely postponed. Though it’s not in Malory, we’ve come to also know that it will be in the time of Britain’s greatest need. That’s also the creed of the show; Merlin’s version of events sticks (in this one particular) very close to Geoffrey of Monmouth:

“And even the renowned king Arthur himself was mortally wounded; and being carried thence to the isle of Avalon to be cured of his wounds, he gave up the crown of Britain.”

That’s all we get — those few, poignant lines about how much Arthur was loved, how he was renowned, how he was carried from the battle. The story of those left behind is always part of the medieval chronicles; part of Arthur’s legacy is those who survive him. This is likewise true in Merlin, but we get not only the remnant of the Round Table fellowship (my boys) and Guinevere, who is/will be a great queen, but also Merlin himself. In this version of the mythos, Merlin is Arthur’s other half. And Merlin cannot die.

So… what happens if we apply Malory’s assertion to Merlin? Arthur may have gone to come again, but Merlin, here in this world, changed his life. Just think of what this could mean for Merlin, as the other half of Arthur’s bright currency of hope, intervening in the many moments when Arthur’s people might well find themselves in their own darkest hours, craving the coming of a king.

Think of Merlin, keen-eyed and studious, growing his plants in a monastery garden, teaching a series of apprentices how best to care for the sick, copying out useful passages from dozens of manuscripts, knowing before the first longship appeared on the horizon that it was time to run. Think of the astonished abbot watching a rockfall interposed, as if by divine agency, between the hastily organized refugees and the axe-wielding invaders.

Think of Merlin, who has never forgotten how useful and how convincing the display of stupidity can be, responding to Duke William’s — King William’s — appraisers. "Oh, no, that field’s been waste for years. Can’t get anything to grow there." "Yeah, those are all of our pigs." "How many acres of forest? Dunno, eight maybe?"

Think of Merlin, who cannot die, tending the sick and shaking with fever and watching the world’s population die around him in the mid-fourteenth century. Think of Merlin Emrys watching the flagellants and the fires, and the desperate, doomed attempts of medical authorities to explain the plague, religious authorities to halt the violence. Tending the sick is all he can do.

Think of Merlin, satchel over his shoulder, pony between his knees, trotting in the pack trains of Henry V’s army, patching up the soldiers, brewing medicines, making soups, dodging the dangerous kickback of the cannons during the endless sieges. Think of Merlin Emrys, later, hearing tales of a girl who follows old religions, who acts with absolute faith, who is burned as a user of magic.

Think of Merlin below-decks as a ship’s surgeon in Nelson’s navy, his nimble hands setting bones, stitching wounds, never quite working fast enough. Think of the conscripts and volunteers promised a future by a pale doctor marked with other men’s blood, a man who works desperately to halt the waste of human life.

Think of Merlin working alongside and under Mary Seacole, trying to spread cheer and comfort and to maybe save a few more lives. He allows the weariness to show in his eyes, now. He allows some of his vast age to show in his face. He looks at the vastness of Victoria’s empire, and remembers Queen Annis, thinking about how rare it is for a ruler to sacrifice land for the good of a people.

Think of Merlin, who has always mended bodies, seeing them turned into earth, turned into mud, corrupted by gas, burned and shot and shredded. Still he works. Once he faints at the operating table. He cannot die. He comes to know No Man’s Land well. He becomes a legend in multiple armies. He lets the legends grow. Men are in need of legends, in those dark winters and those barren springs without birdsong.

Think of Merlin helping with evacuations during Operation Pied Piper, doing magic with colors more brilliant than the children of London have ever seen, creating a world as brilliant as they allow themselves to imagine, conjuring smiles out of tears. Think of Merlin Emrys, AFS stenciled on his helmet, whispering words of power to the fires that rage through the city, savoring stewed tea and companionship with the other volunteers who sit on upturned milk crates, grinning with relief, eyes still streaming with smoke.

Think of Merlin listening to the medievalism of Genesis and remembering the worlds he has lost. Think of Merlin on picket lines and in protest marches in Thatcherite Britain. Think of Merlin, for whom prison cells are no novelty, smuggling information and food, binding wounds, shouting slogans, cheerful and exhausted and inspired.

This is the Merlin who waits for the return of the once and future king, protecting Arthur’s people, keeping their hope alive.


	2. Sorcerer, present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon about (what else?) the revelation of Merlin's magic. Perhaps my most dearly cherished what-if.

My greatest what-if might also be my saddest one. What if Arthur valued him enough to listen to him? What if the promise of equality were more than just a rhetorical flourish in an emergency, and Merlin were given a seat at the Round Table? What if it were impossible for Merlin to say, with resigned honesty, “I was dying,” and be ignored? What if he didn’t have to keep holding on to the corrosive fear that his would be the first of many deaths, if Arthur were to find out about his magic? What if he didn’t have to be so alone in holding onto hope, a shell of a man, too weary for desire, driven only by the need to save others? 

I want him to be able to use his magic. I don’t want him to become the man we see, so afraid of his own desires that he can’t imagine what it would be like to live in freedom (he believes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that it must and will happen, but it’s an abstract vision, one he dare not reach for; this pains me.) Just one time – one time – let the knights of Camelot see the truth that saves them. 

For Leon, awe and fear are at odds; Elyan stares with the wonder he reserves for masters of their craft, knowing that that is what he is seeing; Percival waits to be told what’s going on… but not for long, because Gwaine, delighted as a child seeing his first fireworks, will delight in explaining, pounding Percival on his massive shoulder for emphasis. 

“We will deal with this,” says Arthur, stone-faced, “later.” But later, of course, involves legal punishments for the guilty, and arrangements for the wounded, and a reallocation to make sure the relevant stretch of road is patrolled, and Merlin waits for the blow to fall. 

A week later, while he is folding one of Arthur’s shirts, it comes. “Why are you still my servant?” 

For an instant, he freezes… and then resumes, working in silence, until very deliberately he shuts the wardrobe door. He may be condemned to death by fire, but he will not leave a task uncompleted. He decides on the truth: “I don’t know how to be anything else.” The room is eerily quiet, and he will not look at Uther Pendragon’s son. 

“You couldn’t,” says Arthur, and stops. Very cautiously, Merlin turns toward him, his eyes still on the floor (which needs a good sweep; he’s had other things to do lately.) “You couldn’t,” says Arthur again, “imagine being my sorcerer?” 

And then Merlin’s head jerks up, and he tells himself that the sudden movement is the cause of his dizziness, of the fact that he stumbles, and suddenly he is sitting on the floor, breathless and helpless and staring precisely at the edge of Arthur’s desk. He is not sure whether he is laughing or weeping. 

“You idiot,” says Arthur, in an entirely familiar voice, as he sits down beside him. “You idiot, Merlin.” And the most powerful sorcerer of this or any age becomes aware that he is both laughing and weeping. 

“Prat,” says Merlin happily, as if it is a ritual response, and collapses into his friend’s embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> The snippets of history in which I imagine Merlin participating are, as follows:
> 
> Viking raids (9th-10th centuries)  
> Aftermath of the Norman conquest and compilation of the Domesday Book (1080s)  
> Black Death (1340s onwards)  
> Hundred Years War, Agincourt campaign and Joan of Arc's career (1415-1431)  
> Napoleonic Wars (early 1800s)  
> Crimean War (1854)  
> World War One (1914-1918)  
> London Blitz (1939-1940)  
> Issue of "Selling England By the Pound," various protests under Margaret Thatcher (1973, 1979-1990)


End file.
